CVS to Buy Aetna for $68 Billion

According to reports in several media, CVS Healthcare Corp. (NYSE: CVS) will buy Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET). The deal has been rumored for weeks

Bloomberg editors wrote:

CVS Health Corp. will buy Aetna Inc. for about $67.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, creating a health-care and retail giant that will have a hand in everything from insurance to the corner drugstore.

CVS will pay $207 a share for Aetna, made up of $145 a share in cash and the rest in stock, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. That’s a 29 percent premium to Aetna’s share price on Oct. 25, the day before the companies were said to be in talks.

The deal, among the biggest health-care mergers of the last decade, is expected to be officially announced later Sunday, according to the person. Including CVS’s assumption of Aetna’s debt, the deal will total $78 billion.

The deal combines the largest U.S. drugstore chain with the third-biggest health insurer, rolling Aetna’s health insurance business with CVS’s drug plans and retail operations. In doing so, it may herd some of Aetna’s 22 million customers into CVS drugstores when they fill a prescription through CVS’s drug plans. It will also give Aetna’s insurance plans a closer on-the-ground tie to where customers get care.